Jane Austen House: A Charming Walk Through the Life of a Beloved Author
A virtual tour through Jane Austin’s House in Chawton, England
Jane Austen is a beloved author who wrote six books about romance in Regency England. It was a time of manors and civility. It was also a time when women had to marry in order to have a future and females were not supposed to write books. None of that stopped Jane from living her best life. On December 16, 2025, Jane turn’s 250 years old and fans around the world are going to celebrate!
On a recent virtual tour of the Jane Austen House, a museum dedicated to her life, it was revealed that although Jane remains one of the bestselling authors of all time, she wrote in secret and told no one but her family of this vocation. Her first book was bylined “Anonymous” and, later, “By a Lady.” She was considered a spinster over two hundred years ago, but for future generations and the museum that honors her, she is a feminist trailblazer.
Jane Austen House is a residential museum that was established in her final home. Jane lived there from 1809 to 1817, until her untimely death at age forty-two. It is said she wrote or revised her six books there, including Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.
This country home is located in the town of Chawton, in Hampshire England. Jane’s father was a Vicar and when he died the family had to move as women were not allowed to own property. However, Jane had six beloved brothers. One of them, Edward, inherited several homes in Chawton. He gave this house to his mother, and his sisters Jane and Cassandra. A family friend, Martha, lived there too. The other women did the bulk of the chores so Jane could write. Local residents and benefactors formed the Jane Austen Society and saved the home in 1940; it was given as a gift to the nation.
There are three ways to tour the museum: One is to make an in-person visit; another is to experience the virtual tour that is available on the website; another is to take a guided virtual tour that is led by the museum’s enthusiastic staff. This review is geared toward virtual visitors.
If you just want to take a leisurely virtual stroll through the house, begin the virtual self-guided visit on the homepage of the site. From there you can scroll down and click on a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that says: 36⁰⁰ Virtual Tour. The self-guided tour has clear arrows that lead from room to room. Once you enter each room, you can move the arrow to look at all four walls, rather than just the image you first arrive on. It is similar to the kind of Google maps technology that allows you to move from block to block.
The tour opens with the outside of the home with some illustrations of people of the day. From there you will be taken to an image of the back of the Courtyard. Click again, and you will find yourself in the Bakeroom, where food was cooked, and also clothing was washed. Next is the outside area titled House and Garden. From there you can move through a series of rooms: Kitchen, Drawing Room, Dining Parlor, Reading Room, Jane Austen’s Bedroom, Family Room, Dressing Room, Admiral’s Room, Austen Treasures, and the Legacy Room.
A true fan will love setting virtual foot into the place Jane called home, but the devotee will also appreciate the further advantage of the guided tour, which is presented by two guides with lovely British accents who love sharing secrets behind the house and Jane’s life there. You can pay £6.50 to register for the appointed time and they will lead you through the same virtual tour but with a narrative that makes all the rooms come alive.
On the Guided Virtual Tour, it is revealed that the Drawing Room was much like those in Jane’s novels. The family would gather and chat, sew, read, and also play the piano. They contend that it was in this room that Jane read Pride and Prejudice out loud to her housemates for the first time and that she held the book and called it, “My darling child.” Jane loved music and the piano was the first acquisition for the room. The room also has her father’s beloved bookcase from their earlier home, and it has books by Jane’s favorite authors.
The guided tour also reveals that Jane did her writing in the Dining Parlor. Janes’s modest writing desk is near the fireplace, in front of a grandfather clock, but also near a window where she could take advantage of the sunlight. “This is where the magic happened,” one guide declared. The pedestal of the desk had to be replaced but the top is authentic. There is a feather pen and inkwell on top. (See the photo above).
Moving into Jane Austen’s Bedroom, it is revealed that the canopied bed is a replica of one she slept on. It has on it a green dress worn by Anne Hathaway in the movie, “Becoming Jane.” The real Jane shared this room with her beloved sister Cassandra. The small painting of Jane on the wall over the fireplace is the only remaining real image of her and it was painted by Cassandra in 1811. While virtually guided through the Admiral’s Room and the Family Room, many more Austen insights are revealed. For example, Jane’s six beloved brothers — James, George, Edward, Henry, Francis, and Charles — all married and provided Jane with thirty nieces and nephews. Francis became a British knight but she was proud of all six brothers. It was Jane’s brothers who arranged to have all her books published under her name after she died.
It is also revealed on the guided tour that Jane wrote over 3,000 letters but only sixteen survived. There is a small treasure chest in the Vestibule area that displays some of her surviving letters (or copies of them). Upon Jane’s passing, her sister Cassandra destroyed most of these letters, presumable to protect Jane’s privacy.
Jane Austen’s Home is filled with reminders of her life. It has some family heirlooms and furniture and replicas of other items she may have had. It has on display the famous topaz ring she wore, which was won in an auction by singer Kelly Clarkson until the British government deemed it a national treasure and refused to let it leave the country. The walls are filled with documents, posters, and framed written materials. The Legacy Area honors Jane’s end of life — she is buried in Winchester Cathedral — as well as her afterlife, as a bestselling author whose works have been turned into movies, television shows, and many forms of entertainment. On the shelf is a book cover of Pride and Prejudice, featuring the stars of the PBS special, Collin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, and a fan with an image of one of Jane’s most famous characters, Mr. Darcy.
If you have wandered through the virtual tour on your own, you will reach a final pop-up box inviting you to click a box: Book Tickets, What’s On, Donate, and Visit Gift Shop. If you take the guided tour, you may receive a follow-up letter from your guides sharing various links to find out more about Jane as well as a link to the gift shop. The museum is run by a charitable trust and income goes to keeping Jane’s legacy alive.
SOURCES
This article contains direct links to the Jane Austin House official website. Information was gathered through taking the virtual tour, the guided tour, and historical information on the website, including:
A Short History of Jane Austen’s House
Jane Austen’s House: The Most Treasured Austen Site in the World
